“As un-scientific as it sounds, this idea that this kind of soul or spirit or animating force -- that makes us what we are and persists after our death -- is common", he said.

"Virtually every culture, every religion, has that deeply held belief."

Prof Cox said the reason for this is because it simply "feels right".

"I mean just think about it: it's hard to accept that when you die you will just stop existing and that your life, the essence of you, is really just something that emerges from an inanimate bag of stuff."

MEANING OF LIFE: We are a 'bag of stuff' (Pic: NC)

On Day of The Dead, held on November 1, people across the Philippines gather at graveyards and light flames to "honour and warm" dead loved-ones and invite their souls to commune with them.

"You can see these people come not only to celebrate the lives of their relatives but they're also coming in some sense to communicate with them.

"Their relatives, even though their bodies have died, are still in some sense here.

"And when you think about it, that's not so easy to dismiss.

ETERNITY: Energy can neither be created nor destroyed, only changed into another form (Pic: GETTY)

"If we are to state that science can explain everything about us, then it's incumbent on science to answer the question; what is it that animates living things, what is the difference between rock that's carved into a gravestone and me?"

It is only recently that science has began to answer these ultimate questions.

The answer, according to Prof Cox, is tangled up with energy, matter and an astounding four billion years of evolution.

The first life is thought to have formed in primordial vents deep in the ocean, with implications Prof Cox calls "the most exciting idea of all".